Ukraine war briefing: Zelenskyy says Moscow terrorising Ukrainians as fresh strikes kill eight

As Russian drones struck Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine on Sunday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia was showing no signs of de-escalating the war despite assurances to the US that it would. In a statement on X, Zelenskyy accused Russia of terrorising Ukrainians with its latest attacks, which he said included setting on fire a market outside Kyiv, and striking kindergartens, schools, homes and communications facilities. “Anywhere in the world, this choice of targets would be called by one word – terrorism. Russia has no military objective whatsoever in doing this – it is purely an attempt to break people and inflict as much harm as possible on our society,” Zelenskyy said. “If Russia were truly preparing for any real steps toward de-escalation – as it claims, particularly to American negotiators – this wave of … terror would not be happening,” he said, calling on the US to fully implement the Lindsey Graham Act, which enables sweeping sanctions on Russia aimed at pressing it into ending the war.

Zelenskyy’s comments came ahead of the conclusion of the UN general assembly in New York on Monday. On the weekend, the foreign ministers of Russia and Germany met in New York on the sidelines of the ⁠assembly to discuss the war but Russia’s top diplomat dismissed Germany’s calls to ease off its “dangerous path of escalation” towards Europe. Zelenskyy said on X that Ukraine was relying on “effective decisions” being made by other countries and stronger pressure from its partners in the G7 and G20, “so that Russia sees that manipulating diplomatic signals will not allow it to keep winning more and more time for war and terror”.

New sanctions packages targeting financial networks, supply chains and companies and individuals helping produce Russian weapons “must take effect as early as October” Zelenskyy said also, to provide a stronger foundation for changing the situation and “pushing Russia toward real diplomacy”.

Russian strikes killed eight people across Ukraine on Sunday, according to authorities while Zelenskyy said Russia had fired about 3,900 drones, aerial bombs and other missiles at Ukraine over the past week. Ukrainian prosecutors said a drone attack hit a market in Sofiiska Borshchahivka on the western outskirts of Kyiv, killing two and injuring about 10 people. Others died in strikes in different regions and Kyiv also came under attack, local officials said. In the capital, ⁠Mayor Vitali Klitschko said nine people were injured, including a child.

Russia hit also the headquarters of Kyivstar, Ukraine’s largest mobile service provider on Sunday, the company told local media, as Moscow continued a bombardment of Ukrainian ⁠datacentres and communications infrastructure. Kyivstar told Interfax Ukraine news agency that its head office in Kyiv had been hit, but there were no casualties.

Peter Beaumont and Artem Mazhulin have reported on the dire living conditions inside Oleshky, across the Dnipro River from the southern city of Kherson. Life in the city – once home to 24,000 people but now with only 2,000 remaining – has become “a hell on earth”, according to Ukrainians familiar with conditions there.

South ⁠Korea has demanded an official ⁠explanation and apology ​from Ukraine, accusing Kyiv of disclosing the transfer of two North Korean prisoners of war to South Korea and then falsely denying that the two sides had agreed to keep the move ⁠confidential, according to a report from Reuters. “The presidential office expresses strong regret over Ukraine’s unilateral disclosure and its subsequent false announcement that there had not been a non-disclosure agreement,” Seong Ghi-hong, senior presidential secretary for public relations, said in a statement on Sunday. According to the statement, President Zelenskyy disclosed the transfer in his address to the UN general assembly. Ukraine’s embassy in Seoul did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.